TABLE 1.

Clinical trials of MSCs in pain treatment.

Cell source	Pain type	Cell dose	Transplantation method	Follow-up time	Evaluation method	Therapeutic effect	References
Autologous adipose-derived MSCs	Knee osteoarthritis	1 × 108 cells of MSCs in 3 mL	Intra-articular injection of	6 months	WOMAC score and VAS	Patients with knee osteoarthritis experienced satisfactory functional improvement and pain relief and caused no adverse events during the 6-month follow-up	Lee et al. (2019)
Autologous adipose-derived MSCs	Knee osteoarthritis	13 108ADMSCs; normal saline, 2.1 mL; autol ogous serum, 0.9 mL	Intra-articular injection	6 months	100-mm VAS and WOMAC sore	Patients with osteoarthritis experienced significant pain relief and functional improvement, and no serious treatment-related adverse events were observed	Kim et al. (2023)
Human adipose-derived MSCs	Knee osteoarthritis	5 × 107	Intra-articular injection	12 months	WOMAC score, VAS and SF-36 assessment	The patient tolerated the MSCs transplantation well, and the patient’s joint function, pain, quality of life and cartilage regeneration significantly improved	Lu et al. (2019)
Wharton jelly mesenchymal stromal cells	(T3-11) Patients with chronic complete SCI	10 × 106 cells	intrathecal grafting	6 months	(American Spinal Injury Association impairment scale motor and sensory score, spasticity, neuropathic pain, electrical perception and pain thresholds), lower limb motor evoked potentials (MEPs) and sensory evoked potentials (SEPs)	Intrathecal transplantation of MSCs is considered safe and has no significant side effects. The acupuncture sensation in the skin area below the injury level improved significantly	Albu et al. (2021)
Autologous mesenchymal stromal cells	Chronic SCI patients	100 × 106 cells	Intradural injection	10 months	ASIA, Clinical Scales and Neurophysiology	MSCs treatment was well tolerated by the patients and no adverse events related to MSCs administration occurred. Regardless of the patient’s degree of injury, age, or time after injury, patients showed varying clinical improvements in sensitivity, exercise ability, spasticity, spasticity, NPP, sexual function or sphincter dysfunction, but mainly in terms of sphincter dysfunction, NPP and recovery of sensitivity	Vaquero et al. (2018a)
Autologous bone marrow MSCs	Patients with incomplete SCI	30 × 106 cells	Subarachnoid injection	12 months	VAS,Neurophysiology and neuroimaging	After MSCs transplantation, patient sensitivity and motor function showed some improvement. Sexual function improved in two of the eight male patients. Four patients experienced neuropathic pain before treatment; two of them had pain disappeared and the other patient had pain reduced	Vaquero et al. (2017)
Autologous mesenchymal stromal cells	Paraplegic patient with syringomyelia	300 million MSCs	Intrathecal grafting	6 months	ASIA/Clinical Scales and Neurophysiology	MSCs transplantation reduced syringomyelia. Three patients experienced neuropathic pain before treatment, which reduced or disappeared completely after treatment. Only two adverse events occurred, which were not related to cell therapy	Vaquero et al. (2018b)